


The Sifter

by thesecretdoor



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, Johnny's Jr., KAT-TUN (Band), SixTONES (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dimension Travel, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-03-30 03:17:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13941429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecretdoor/pseuds/thesecretdoor
Summary: Juri has a rare, natural talent for sifting between dimensions. He can do it, but he doesn't, until he finds a very good reason to.





	1. Prologue: Ink Is Forever

**Author's Note:**

> This is the start of something...Written for [Shiritori](https://writetomyheart.livejournal.com/)

“ _You’d_ probably look really hot covered in tattoos.” Juri huffs at Shintaro and Shintaro squeezes his hand a little tighter as Koki moves the tattoo gun over to the other side of Juri’s chest and starts it up again. “I’m just going to look ridiculous.”  
  
“It’s not about what they look like.” Koki answers, but his tone says it’s not the first time he’s said it.  
  
It isn’t a touchy topic exactly, but Shintaro would never dare comment on the appearance of tattoos in front of Koki, not with the extensive scarring creeping down Koki’s arms and over his chest from years’ worth of trial and error on his own body.  
  
There have been Sifters flitting in and out of this dimension for hundreds of years already, Shintaro has been told, but Koki was the first one that didn’t want to have to leave ever again.  
  
“How many more?” Juri complains, and Shintaro squirms a little as he looks down at Juri’s chest and how little of the specially formulated ink there is in place.  
  
Koki actually pulls the gun away to fix an unimpressed glare on Juri’s face. “You said you would do anything to stay with him right?” Koki asks, and Shintaro shrinks a little as Juri turns to glance at him and swallows. “Well what you need to do is be quiet and let me concentrate, if I get the runes wrong then it won’t work.”  
  
Sifting isn’t a common skill, even in Juri’s world, being able to adjust your own body on a molecular level to sift through the fabrics between time and dimensions. Even after all the years of having Juri sift in and out of his life Shintaro doesn’t quite believe it’s possible. Koki has explained the mechanics, the concentration and the energy it costs to move across a dimension, the way the pull from their own dimension strains everything inside them harder the further away they go or longer they stay away, but Shintaro still doesn’t understand.  
  
What he does understand is that he somehow fell in love, that the idiot that kept appearing at irregular intervals in his life makes him smile, that Juri makes him laugh and that when he’s gone Shintaro feels empty. He understands that Juri loves him too, enough that he’s willing to leave behind his home and the majority of his family, to let his brother mark his body with secrecy spells in ink designed to interfere with the atmosphere and the pull that his dimension has on him.  
  
It takes hours and a lot more flesh to finish the tattoos, and even though Shintaro is hungry and he’s distressed from watching Juri’s level of suffering gradually increasing, he stays the whole time. He stays because Juri is doing so much more for him, Juri is staying so much longer, for him. The tattoos will stop Juri from sifting, Juri won’t be able to go home, he won’t have to go home and they can stay together forever.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write something for Juri's Birthday but I totally failed. Instead, have the first chapter to a JuriShin multichapter I've been working on for like...forever (I'm making no promises about when the next chapter will be out because I am a failure of a writer sometimes)

  
Juri was six when he sifted for the first time. Koki hadn’t been that young when he’d started, but Koki had wanted to do it more, he’d trained hard at improving his skill and everyone had encouraged Juri to do the same since so few were blessed with the natural ability.  
  
By the time Juri was ten he was using his skill as barely more than a teleportation device while Koki was already moving between dimensions.  
  
“Juri, I saw the most amazing thing today.” Koki would tell him excitedly from time to time, and every time there was something different – a dimension where everything was frozen, one where everything was covered in slime, one that was inhabited solely by deformed looking lizards.  
  
Juri was mildly curious but the feeling of sifting through space was unpleasant enough, Juri didn’t really care to find out how nauseating it would be to sift through dimensions never mind how the alternate dimension’s atmosphere would affect him even with an oxygen suit on.  
  
By the time Juri turned fifteen, Koki was graduating from the best electrophysiology school in the country with job offers from three of the top inter-dimensional discovery institutes in the world. Sifting was a rare enough ability that if anyone managed to get good enough to actually sift between dimensions it was big news.  
  
“I don’t care about joining any stupid dimension discovery programmes.” Juri had huffed when Koki confronted him about it for the third time in as many weeks. Juri still had three more years before he needed to pick a dedicated school, he didn’t understand why Koki was being so pushy about it.  
  
“Juri!” Koki shouted, irritation bubbling under the surface of his skin and it made Juri sad, he and Koki had always been close until Koki started getting these job offers and suddenly grew up. “You don’t understand how wasteful you’re being, there are hundreds of thousands of people that would give almost anything to be able to sift the way you can…and that’s the worst part, you have so much more potential. I could do it…” Koki said, his voice passionate “but I had to work so hard at it Juri, you barely had to try…if you would just focus your energy a little you could be so much better at it than I am…you’d probably already have mastered sifting through time-space!”  
  
“I don’t care about sifting through time-space Koki…that’s your dream, not mine. Those other dimensions hold no real interest to me…”  
  
“How do you know?” Koki asked in exasperation. “You don’t even know what’s there. There might be infinite dimensions beside our own…and when you consider time too…how do you know there isn’t something out there for you?” When Juri didn’t answer Koki continued. “Fine then, what is there for you in this dimension?”  
  
“I don’t know yet.” Juri had answered honestly.  
  
“Well figure it out.” Koki had said with finality. “Or you’re going to end up in some dead end data entry job or worse, something outdoors, and that’s not going to pay enough for oxygen and sustenance pellets.”  
  
That was the last Koki had said on the matter, and as his work load increased Juri saw less and less of him. It didn’t stop Juri’s mother from nagging him to figure out where he was headed though. Juri didn’t care where he was headed really, there was nothing he wanted to do with his life besides synthesise music and he knew there was no career in that.  
  
A job outdoors wouldn’t even bother him if not for the long hours. Most people hated leaving the indoors because of the weight and discomfort of the oxygen suits it required, but since the invention of teleportation devices there wasn’t much need to go outdoors unless you worked out there. Juri hadn’t needed to wear one of the suits beyond the ‘outdoors survival’ classes they’d had to take every two years in school, but he couldn’t imagine it would be too bad just for a couple of hours a day. Unfortunately most outdoors work was long and physical, building and maintenance mostly, so Juri figured data entry would be easier.  
  
His mother, much like Koki, had been trying since he was a child to get him to try harder with sifting, but by the time Juri turned eighteen and chose to go to a two year school specialising in technical computing, even she gave up.  
  
Juri is almost nineteen by the time sifting is even brought up again, only this time it’s in the strangest way.  
  
“Juri.” Koki hisses quietly, shaking Juri awake. “Juri I need to show you something…”  
  
“Koki?” Juri groans and Koki clamps a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet and he urges Juri up and out of his bed. Juri moves as quietly as he can to ensure their other brothers don’t wake up, but he turns on Koki the moment they’re in the sitting room. “What the hell are you doing?”  
  
“Juri I found something…” Koki says and his tone is almost delirious. “I managed to sift through time-space and I ended up somewhere incredible and I don’t know what to do about it. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you…”  
  
Juri vaguely remembers Koki’s words from just minutes earlier. “So you’re going to show me?”  
  
“I can’t make you sift but if you do it with me I think I can guide you…” Koki says in excitement.  
  
“Through time-space?” Juri asks warily. “I’ve never even crossed a space dimension, never mind a time-space one!”  
  
Koki looks as though he’s barely listening. “Juri I need to show you…please, it’s driving me crazy.” He looks crazed Juri thinks, but he waits patiently until Koki calms his breathing. “You don’t know what you want to do with your life but I do, I’ve always known. All I’ve ever wanted to do was explore other dimensions, to search for something else…and I’ve found it…”  
  
Juri still doesn’t understand why Koki needs to show it to him, but he nods anyway because it’s Koki, because Koki would do anything for him. “Shall we go now?” Juri asks, heading towards the oxygen storage tanks.  
  
Koki halts him with a gentle hand and a smile “We don’t need those here, you’ll see. Now concentrate on me…”  
  
Juri sets aside his doubt, shakes off the last of his sleepy haze and focuses, closing his eyes and concentrating harder than he ever has done on feeling his cells shudder apart, he feels the charge building, sparking in his veins and he takes a breath as it increases. He concentrates on Koki as he feels himself breaking apart, every molecule that makes him up sifting through the atmosphere.  
  
He feels it the second they’re out of their dimension, the change in the atmosphere swirling him around and he’s not sure how to make the pieces fit back together.  
  
He’s almost sick when they do, and he feels something soft and cool beneath his fingers as he falls to his hands and knees. Koki helps him back to his feet, and he can stand but he still feels so light and tingly, there’s a sporadic breeze blowing at his face and he reaches out his arm to find the sun’s rays soothing rather than scorching.  
  
He’s heard Koki talk of other dimensions, of how different and wondrous they could be but Juri never imagined he could feel this moved until this moment. The sky above him is blue, the ground beneath him is plush green and he fills his lungs with fresh oxygen. “Where is it coming from?” he asks Koki as he looks round in astonishment, there are no vents or sockets to be seen, no machines, it’s just green until the ground meets the sky.  
  
Koki smiles knowingly and slowly points down at the ground. “From there.”  
  
“From the ground?” Juri asks in disbelief.  
  
“From the plants.” Koki says and when Juri tilts his head in confusion he continues with a laugh. “All of this green stuff is alive. We breathe in oxygen and breath out carbon dioxide, but these plants do the opposite…”  
  
“Plants?” Juri asks, trying out the word as he reaches down to stroke his fingers through soft blades of green. “These are the inhabitants of this dimension?”  
  
“Not just these.” Koki says, “I’ve only been studying this dimension for a few months but already the species I’ve seen living here far outweigh our own dimension. The main inhabitant though?” Koki asks with a grin. “That will be an even bigger surprise.”  
  
Koki grabs his hand and starts running. Juri hasn’t run since he was a child but somehow his legs don’t feel stiff, they feel light and un-constricted and he finds himself laughing as Koki leads him further than he’s used to even walking.  
  
When Koki stops abruptly Juri almost bumps into him and he’s about to complain when his own gasp interrupts him, a few metres ahead of him are people. “They’re humans…” Juri says unnecessarily. “They’re like us…but how? Where are we?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Koki answers. “On a different plane, further back in the past than we are in our own dimension, but even with all the differences it’s so much like ours…The people are just like us, they have cities and schools and democracies, but they have so much more that we don’t, plants…hundreds more other mammals than we have, they have fresh air and food…”  
  
“Food?” Juri asks.  
  
“They don’t use sustenance pellets” Koki tells him, his face alight with excitement again. “Everything they need they get from other sources, from plants and from mammals and fish…and loads of other stuff that I don’t even know what to call yet, they eat it just like we do pellets only there are so many different tastes and textures…but it all works…”  
  
“Have you tried it?” Juri asks, his face wrinkling up, “You’ve actually…eaten…a fish?”  
  
Koki laughs. “Just wait until you try it. Juri there’s so much that I’ve learned about this dimension in such a short space of time, and there are so many things I have yet to learn about it. It’s just so nice to finally be able to tell someone about it.”  
  
Juri pauses in his disgusted expression. “Wait? You haven’t told anybody about it? You’ve been studying it for months right?”  
  
“On and off” Koki concedes. “Time moves differently here, always faster but seemingly never at the same rate, sometimes I'll be gone only a few days in our time and months have passed, other times just weeks, I can't stay here long though, after a few days here the gravitoelectromagnetical pull from our dimension…”  
  
Juri shakes his head to stop Koki. “Don’t start with all those long words, I asked why you hadn’t told anybody…that’s your job isn’t it?”  
  
Koki looks momentarily sheepish and then his expression shifts to pleading. “So I went back through the records at work…we’ve been here before…the coordinate shifts match to a handful of entries ranging back nearly four-hundred years…but none of those entries mention humans…and they describe the plants but not the oxygen they produce. Juri, people have been here before but they didn’t know exactly what they’d stumbled upon…if I tell them…if they have the coordinates and if they come and experience it for themselves…The thing is that I don’t want to leave…it’s more complicated than that, but even if it wasn’t…this dimension functions better than ours…if other people come they might not want to leave either and then it’s only a matter of time, a few hundred years maybe until we have the technology to cross dimensions commercially…and then they’ll come here and they’ll ruin this place.”  
  
“But…” Juri starts but Koki interrupts him.  
  
“I think our dimension might have been like this once, or close to it maybe…mammals can survive on their own here, living off of the plants, or off of other smaller animals. How did our mammals survive before we started giving them sustenance pellets? Where did they come from? How did we find out the chemical structure of oxygen so that we could produce it synthetically if there wasn’t once something natural like it?” Koki shrugs. “I don’t know those things, that’s not my field of science but it makes sense, they even have some technologies similar to ours here…I don’t know, but I think our dimension was once like this until we somehow destroyed it. I won’t be responsible for the destruction of this one too.”  
  
Juri doesn’t know either, he never was good with science and biology stuff, but what Koki is saying makes sense if Juri squints hard enough and besides it’s not his job, what difference does it make to him. “So what are you going to do then? If you’re not going to tell anyone?” Juri asks.  
  
“I’m going to find a way to stay here.” Koki answers. “I can’t bring anybody with me that can’t sift…that technology is beyond me, but I might be able to find a way to interfere with the gravitoele…with the pull…” he amends when Juri side-eyes him. “I don’t know how long it will take…but if you still haven’t found what there is for you in our dimension…you could come here with me.”  
  
“Koki…I…” Juri starts, but he just can’t find words either way to say anything.  
  
“There’s more that I want to show you…you wouldn’t believe the art and the music…and the people. Let me show you, and then decide.”


End file.
